Vinod Khosla may thumb his nose at tech startups that enable better billing management, but one such startup seems to be chugging along fine in terms of raising capital.
Inbox Health, a software company that enables healthcare providers to improve the accuracy of patient benefit information and payment processing, recently raised $1.5 million in a seed round led by existing investor Connecticut Innovations while others like Launch Capital, I2BF Global Ventures, Mohawk Ventures, David Sturek, and Margaret Ricciardi also participated. Ironically, the New Haven, Connecticut firm is a Startup Health portfolio company, and it was at Startup Health Festival in January in San Francisco that Khosla made the declaration about the healthcare startups he hates.
However, to be fair, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor did concede that there is nothing wrong with going after better billing management, and startups will find other willing investors. But for him, only disruptive change will do.
Meanwhile, Inbox Health, which officially launched in 2015, is looking to use the capital raised to improve an area of healthcare rife with inefficiency: the physician’s practice. The company has raised a total of $2.5 million to date, said Blake Walker, Inbox Health’s chief product officer, in an email response to questions.
But while the company’s product aims to improve billing systems for small physician’s practices, the software has a decidedly patient-centered flavor. If a patient has an upcoming appointment, Inbox Health can send them a text or email that serves as a reminder as well as a prompt to check-in, in advance. When they do so, they can complete forms needed for the visit as well as add their insurance information.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
“We check and analyze their health insurance benefits in real-time, based both on the type of visit they are coming in for and what their policy covers, and then provide the patient with an overview of expected costs so they understand how their benefits work,” Walker said. “This all happens automatically, so it drastically reduces the costs associated with collecting money from patients.”
The company has more than 250 individual groups using the platform and is adding 30-or so monthly, Walker said.
But patient revenue cycle management is a crowded space. Not only is Inbox taking on the status quo of practice management software that today serve many physician’s offices, there are other tech startups as well. Walker himself named a few that compete in some shape or form: PatientPay, Seamless Medical Technologies, and Phreesia. Another is Acryness, which enables patient engagement to help them understand their bills and simplify payment options. The goal is to combine better patient communications systems with better billing software.
But Walker believes the startup has something that others don’t.
“What’s unique about Inbox Health is that we create a loop that facilitates transparency for patients before visits, and collects the patient’s balance afterwards,” he pointed out. “Our goal is to completely reinvent the medical revenue cycle and have 99% of patient payments occur at the point of care, in full, within five years.”
The company’s CakeHealth acquisition, which Inbox bought in April for an undisclosed sum, is key to achieving that goal. CakeHealth aggregates medical cost and insurance data to better aid in managing expenses.
“That’s why the CakeHealth acquisition was important to us, and that’s why we’re investing in neural networks that examine insurance claim data, and blockchain technology to achieve a system that is able to accurately determine full costs at the time of the visit in nearly every case,” Walker said.
Photo: Topp_Yimgrimm, Getty Images
